Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Thursday, 15 March, members of the East Turkestan community of South Australia, often referred to as Uyghur people, held a rally on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide drawing attention to the persecution of their people in their homelands by the Chinese government. This week, I understand Australians of East Turkestan origin are here in Canberra to similarly raise awareness of the situation in East Turkestan.

Over the years, I have met with several people who originate from East Turkestan and who now live in Adelaide. They have approached me with individual stories about human rights violations and incarceration, often for trivial offences, of relatives and friends by the governing authorities in their homeland. Last year, I wrote to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Julie Bishop, about some of those concerns. In her response to me, the minister acknowledged the government had deep concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang. I understand that the international organisation Human Rights Watch has also reported on the religious persecution of Uyghurs in East Turkestan.

I have not been to East Turkestan, but I have no reason to doubt the claims of persecution are legitimate, and I know the concerns of people whom I have spoken with are very real. Local Uyghur people state that since March 2017 at least 120,000 Uyghurs have been confined against their will in so-called education camps, otherwise referred to as concentration camps. Within the centres, those detained are subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Outside the centres, Uyghur people are stripped of their right to free movement and to free speech.

I understand that the Uyghur people have their own rich historical, cultural, linguistic and religious identity and that they want an autonomous region of their own. That has been denied to them and of course contributes to the current situation. Their message to the Australian government, and to this parliament, is that in their homelands Uyghur people are being persecuted, that the concentration camps are profoundly inhuman and that every day Uyghur people are disappearing from their communities, often with other family members not knowing where they have been taken. For those family members, both in East Turkestan and here in Australia, the situation is deeply distressing. I have seen their faces and I've heard their stories for myself.

I bring these concerns to the attention of the House and to the government in the hope that international attention to the situation in East Turkestan may lead to a restoration of human rights, and I know that that is exactly what those people coming to Canberra this week will be hoping for.